The girl alone was in saddle, so wrapped about in blankets as to be formless, even her face concealed.

The manner in which she swayed to the movements of the pony, urged on by one of the Indians, was evidence that she was bound fast, and helpless.

At sight of her condition Hamlin felt his old relentless purpose return.

He was plainsman enough to realize what suffering those men had passed through before reaching such extremity, and was quick to appreciate the full meaning of their exhaustion, and to sympathize with it.

He had passed through a similar baptism, and remembered the desperate clutch of the storm-king.
But the sight of that poor girl swaying helplessly in the saddle, a bound prisoner in the midst of those ruffians, who had murdered her father before her eyes and who were bearing her to all the unspeakable horrors of Indian captivity, instantly stifled within him every plea of mercy.